Paula Chichester

Gelug

Paula Chichester grew up in Berkeley, where as a teenager in the 1960s she began looking for something that could shift how people see the world. A decade later she met Lama Thubten Yeshe, and she went on to study with the fourteenth Dalai Lama and Kyabje Zong Rinpoche among others. Following the advice of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, she spent some forty years in study and retreat, including long stretches alone in the manner of the mahasiddhas. For the past thirteen years she has travelled in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa to give talks and lead meditation. She is based at Braeview Hermitage, two cottages in the Shetland Islands, where she guides retreats and works to keep Chöd practice available in English, and she has adapted sadhanas to be chanted to Tibetan melodies.